Traditional art and sketching

Peruse our Sketching from the Imagination series, start your own sketch journal, or try your hand at clay sculpting! If you’re a complete beginner looking for a new hobby, or even an experienced artist looking for inspiration and workflow insights, our traditional art and sketching resources have plenty to offer!

3D digital art

Covering a wide variety of software and approaches, our books, magazines, and eBooks are there to offer you the support and motivation you need. Whether you want to sculpt a monster in ZBrush or create a stylized character in 3ds Max, take a look at our range to start your next project!

Issue 03 of Total magazine focuses on the theme of characters, including tutorials from Randy Bishop, Denis Zilber, and Brun Croes to help you hone your character design skills. So, get stuck in and see what characters we can help you create in the issue!

Welcome to total magazine issue two! This month’s focus is squarely on anatomy, with a mix of traditional, 2D, and 3D tutorials to get stuck into. So polish those tools, crack your fingers, and refine that muscle definition or nail that pose!

Pixologic's ZBrush is the 3D world's premier digital sculpting software, widely used to create high-quality models for the video game, film, animation, and many other industries. Its uniquely intuitive approach to modeling makes it a fantastic asset for any creator hoping to realize their ideas in 3D. To usher students and 3D newcomers into comfortably using this powerful software, Beginner's Guide to ZBrush presents a thorough introduction to the program with in-depth, accessible tutorials that will guide you through ZBrush's essential tools and techniques. Covering key concepts to help you get to grips with the principles of 3D, step-by-step organic, hard-surface, and mixed-surface sculpting workflows, and an overview of external rendering and 3D printing.

In the very first issue you will be treated to an introduction to the 3dtotal team, and an insight into some of the projects we are working on at the moment. Additionally you can enjoy some of our sci-fi themed articles and tutorials which we hope will help take your own work to the next step.

If you’d like to try your hand at 3D printing and don’t know where to begin, this eBook is the ideal starting point. Talented artist and designer James W. Cain will guide you through modeling and printing a character bust using ZBrush and Formlabs’ Form 1+, “the world’s best-selling desktop SLA 3D printer.” The six in-depth chapters will show you your way around the Form 1+ hardware, how to sculpt and prepare a ZBrush model suitable for physical print, how to clean up and finish the print, and how to troubleshoot problems with your 3D-printed projects.

Learn how to make a fun steampunk heroine with the guidance of skilled character artist Roumen Filipov, with 3D model and texture assets included! This eBook covers an entire character creation workflow, from modeling organic and hard surfaces in ZBrush, to topology and UVing with 3ds Max, to posing and rendering the final model. Discover useful techniques that’ll add life to your characters, from creating skin pores to simple posing with the free Super Simple Rig. (ZBrush, 3ds Max with V-Ray, and Photoshop are required for this project.)

Learn how to quickly turn ordinary photographs into new concepts with this handy eBook on photo manipulation and matte painting techniques. The four chapters cover how to use blending modes, textures, brush techniques, over-painting, and combining 2D and3D techniques to create concepts and special effects. Featuring tutorials from Mark Kolobaev, Rotyslav Zagornov, David Roya, and Mathieu ‘FreaksFx’ Roszak this eBook is the go-to guide for time saving ways to create new concepts.

Get a glimpse inside the minds of the masters as Sculpting from the Imagination: ZBrush brings together the 3D sketches of 50 incredible digital artists in an inspiring display of talent and technique. In this unique follow-on from the popular Sketching from the Imagination series, you’ll discover an array of subject matter and styles, from rough models molded in digital clay, to entire characters, creatures, machines, monsters, and more. For 3D artists of all abilities looking to try new approaches and searching for inspiration, this book is a first-class anthology of stunning images, invaluable tips, and artistic insights that will leave any creative mind wanting more.

This month brings you great interviews with the likes of Dmitry Cheremisin and Matthias Develtere, tons of tutorials covering modeling, texturing and rendering, and more besides! Whether you’re in the mood for characters, objects or vehicles, fantasy or sci-fi, we hope there’s something here to tickle your fancy.

We’re bringing you a jam-packed issue this month, with brilliant interviews and tutorials for you to get stuck into! Learn how to make sci-fi ships in 3ds Max and Maya with Victoria Passariello and Rory Björkman, or if you’re in the mood for some character art, pick up some valuable tricks from Roumen Filipov and Ryan Reid.

This month we get to know two brilliant and unconventional artists – Mike Winkelmann, aka beeple, and Gleb Alexandrov of Creative Shrimp – and learn about their inspirations, careers, and impressive work ethics. We also take a look behind the scenes of some inspiring ZBrush work with James Suret, Marco Plouffe and Aram Hakze.

This month’s issue is crammed with variety: from colorful cartoons and ZBrush robots to Houdini abstracts and toothy dinosaur-dragons, we’ve got something for everybody! We interview Teodoru Badiu and Ruben Alvarez about their inspiring careers, learn how to sculpt facial expressions with Djordje Nagulov, create abstract Houdini artwork with Niels Prayer, troubleshoot 3D printer problems with James W. Cain, and much more.

3dtotal’s free magazine was a hit at last year’s SIGGRAPH – thank you to everyone who picked up a copy or downloaded the digital version! Unfortunately we can’t be at SIGGRAPH this year, but to keep up the sharing spirit, we’re releasing this free edition of 3dcreative instead. This issue contains all the usual features and inspirational artwork, at no cost!